‘To serve or engage a public’ – it sounds a bit like an
entertaining policeman’s mantra, but it’s the purpose of public media as I
learnt in my JOUR1111 lecture today. Thanks to public media, I used to be able
to watch Move It Or Lose It on a weekday morning on Briz 31, now 31 Digital,
all without being bombarded with ads for the latest amazing and expensive technological
gadget for toddlers.
Comprising the ABC, SBS and their respective radios, public
media in Australia
is mostly taxpayer supported, although we all remember the scandal and we all
wept deeply when SBS brought in ads (interrupted MythBusters, the beginning of
the media apocalypse).
Back in the olden days when the world was sepia, public
television required license fees from viewers, and so the public service ethos
and value for the public is still embedded today.
The ABC was established as a ‘nation building project’, seen
to reach far and deep into Australian minds; a bit creepy, but with good
intentions.
I’m relevant!
SBS was the shiny multicultural channel, although all I
really observe when flicking past it is its trademark sex between soccer. Yay
for weird late night sexy hotline ads with terrible actors and equally terrible
graphics!
The kind of people
you usually see on these ads.
Personally, I see the ABC as the place to go for sassy
British comedies, Grand Designs to keep mother dearest happy, and Tony Jones,
host of Q&A, the legendary guy that always looks incredibly smug as if he’s
just told the most hilarious joke in existence.
“And then I said,
whattsamatta you?!” *hold for applause*
A key mechanism that has lead to public media’s success is
news. It’s cheap, people always want to watch it, and it’s generally not
something commercial media goes out of their way for (doesn’t lure in the
advertisers nearly as well as Jersey Shore,
aw yeahhh).
Public media’s news is serious. It’s broadsheet. It’s
important. It’s considered. And it sounds like a movie tagline.
Some might argue, however, that it’s boring, elitist, poorly
presented and out of touch. Out of touch? That Pendulum remix of the ABC News
theme was a hit with all the hip club kids!
We're a trendy drum and bass band, and this, is the 7 o’clock news.
According to Rupert Murdoch (never a good start to a
sentence), public media is just doing TOO well. Nothing more legitimate than
Murdoch logic! Public media does have more… decent challenges to face, such as
a demand to provide quality, be relevant, engage with the democratic process
and be informative and independent. That’s a much stricter to-do list than my
usual ‘paint nails, write blog post, feed guinea pig’.
It gets complex. For instance, the ABC – which is being
funded by the government – is also responsible for being the watchdog of the
government. Don’t sweat it though, this is a good thing! The ABC should be
disliked by the government and sit above them so they can’t be ‘held for ransom’.
I found it intriguing that the government was is against the ABC, and yet can’t
do much about it because it’s held in ‘common’ by the people. Up with people!
ABC journalists are briefed to avoid political bias, and it’s
important to remember not everything you’re told is true; Jeremy Paxman of the UK
took it one step further, asking, “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?”
And as I struggle to wittily conclude this blog post, I pose
a question for you: would you rather watch the ‘Gay-BC’, or countless ads for steam
mops?